Warner Bros has had a very eventful time in Las Vegas at CinemaCon, the annual gathering of theater owners. Their presentation included screening The Flash in its entirety (to delighted, stunned reactions), a glimpse of their upcoming film Wonka, and, the focus of this piece, the first look at Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune 2.
The new trailer revealed from Motion Picture shows Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides has matured into the Muad’Dib, prophet of the Fremen, the desert-dwelling people he turned to at the end of Dune after his father had been assassinated. Nearly all of House Atreides had been destroyed. Chalamet was on hand at CinemaCon to reveal the trailer, telling the audience that in the first film, “Paul Atreides is a student,” whereas, in Part Two, we see Paul become a leader.
Becoming a leader to the Fremen includes incredible courage and confidence; the trailer reveals Paul riding one of the colossal sandworms that dominate life on Arrakis. When we last left Paul, he and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), had barely survived the surprise attack issued by the Emperor and carried out by House Harkonnen.
Villeneuve and his writing partner, Jon Spaihts, made the masterful decision to break Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 tome into two parts, with part one ending just after Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård)’s attack on House Atreides, which sent Paul and Lady Jessica into Arrakis’s vast desert, where, thanks to help of the Fremen Chani (Zendaya), and Paul’s ability to prove his worth in hand-to-hand combat, the Fremen took them in.
Dune: Part 2 Trailer
The first look at Dune: Part 2, shows that there are a few newcomers such as Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, and Léa Seydoux in costume, along with returning Dune stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, and Stellan Skarsgård.
Pugh looks regal as Princess Irulan in a gold headdress. Butler’s Feyd-Rautha, meanwhile, can only be glimpsed from behind in silhouette, but it’s enough to reveal that his character will have a seriously sinister look.
“Austin Butler brought to the screen something that would be a cross between a psychotic, sociopath serial killer and Mick Jagger,” director Denis Villeneuve told Vanity Fair.
For Dune: Part 2, Zendaya Having an Awkward Flirting With Timothée Chalamet
For the much anticipated Dune: Part Two, fans have a lot to look forward to, especially since it was revealed that, along with new characters and epic visionary action sequences, there would also be an epic, blossoming space romance between Zendaya‘s character Chani and Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides.
To Buzzfeed, Zendaya said, “I would imagine it wouldn’t be too hard to flirt with Timothée Chalamet, but perhaps in character is a different story.”
Director Denis Villeneuve describes the film as “a war epic action movie.” However, he stressed, “The epicenter of the story is this relationship,” and capturing the “spark” between the two characters was integral. “If we don’t have that onscreen, there’s no movie,” he affirmed.